The Time of My Life
by DarkraixCresselia
Summary: "Despite everything bad that happened, I certainly had fun. I had the time of my life. And I owed it all to my new friends." A sort of introduction to my GotG OC, Crystal. Not really very much, but I haven't written much for a long time. So...might be kind of boring XD


**A/N I own only Crystal, the narrator of this oneshot; everything else is owned by Disney and Marvel.**

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Anyone who has saved anything from a dangerous force will tell you that nightmares are inevitable. Whether it's something like a common criminal, or someone who wishes to destroy entire planets, or potentially galaxies, dreams will always show you what could have happened if the event of preventing the criminals from achieving their goals went wrong. You could lose someone, whether it was someone you knew or not, or you could even die. No one is immune to nightmares, no matter how heroic or brave one is.

Us Guardians of the Galaxy know that for a fact.

I am Crystal, though I prefer Crys. I am a humanoid dragon alien from Drakonehm, a distant planet that is mostly inhabited by dragons. I was born a fire dragon, but breathe ice, causing my childhood to be not very pleasant. I won't bore you with that story however. That is for another time.

But what you can know are my friends, both old and new. The two curious creatures I am very good friends with are Rocket, a very trigger-happy creature who apparently resembles a Terren animal called a raccoon, and Groot, a friendly and sweet tree creature who doesn't say much on the outside. I've been with them for who knows how long, building up a criminal reputation. I've helped them in various criminal acts, stealing various items, avoiding the law, and occasionally having to escape from prison.

Just another day in paradise.

And it should have been a normal day when Rocket decided to target Peter Quill, aka Star Lord, who had a bounty of 40,000 units over his head. However, Gamora, an assassin who was the foster daughter of Thanos, a big, evil overlord of the galaxy, got in the mess when she went after Quill for a metallic orb they both wanted. Long story short, we were all caught by Nova Corps, and sent to Kyln, a rough and dangerous prison. We, as well as another prison named Drax, who had a personal vendetta against Ronan the Accuser, a lackey Kree of Thanos's, for killing his wife and daughter, were able to escape however.

We found out the orb contained an Infinity Stone called a Power Stone, which had the potential to destroy not only living beings, but entire planets. It eventually fell into the hands of Ronan, and so us six criminals had to band together, along with the Ravagers, a band of space pirates who raised Quill, and the Nova Corps, to take back the stone from Ronan. We were able to do so, and destroy Ronan, becoming the Guardians of the Galaxy, but at a price: Groot sacrificed himself to save us when the airship we were in was crashing down to Xandar. But when we thought he was gone, he regrew from a tiny twig Rocket planted in a small flower pot. He is still quite small, despite growing to over three times the twig's size, and so still has a long time before he is over seven feet tall again.

But even though we saved the world, and got our criminal records erased, the mental and emotional scars from the previous battle, and even our previous lives, still remained. And with those scars came nightmares.

I had nightmares of not only Groot dying, but Rocket, Quill, Gamora, and Drax as well. And then Ronan killed me with the Power Stone. Others were of my past life, with my childhood enemies blasting me to pieces with a large purple beam. After the events of the stone, I liked purple considerably less.

Luckily, I had "trained" myself to not scream myself awake, and therefore not wake anyone else. I didn't wish to worry or bother anyone with my nightmares, especially when they had their own to deal with.

When I awoke from my nightmares, I found myself in my bed on the _Milano_, Quill's ship, lying on my stomach with my legs folded under me. Rocket is always laying against my leg with my tail draped over him, and Groot's pot against my chest and next to my neck, with my arms around it. I never seem to wake them, which I was pleased with.

On one night, however, as I calmed myself from my previous nightmare—one where Ronan succeeded in destroying us and Xandar—I found Groot looking at me, head cocked in concern. "Oh, did I wake you, Groot?" I whispered, seeing that Rocket was still asleep.

"I am Groot?" He asked.

Even though to Quill, Gamora, and Drax, Groot was introducing himself, Rocket and I knew what he was really saying. Rocket knew Groot-speak, as the others called it, longer than I knew him; us dragons, however, know almost every language there was to the galaxy, though we struggle with sign language.

And Groot asked me if I was all right.

"I'm fine. I just…scared myself awake." I said meekly, knowing that was a poor lie.

The look Groot gave me indicated that he agreed. "All right, I had a nightmare." I sighed heavily. "I've been having nightmares."

"I am Groot?"

"…Ever since that day on Xandar." I confessed. "I've just been able to control myself to be able to wake up without screaming and waking everyone on this ship up. They have their own nightmares…I don't want to be a burden."

Blinking, Groot patted my head by one of my two slightly-curved horns, smiling. I smiled back. "Thank you, Groot." I curled my neck around his pot, feeling myself start to fall asleep again. I felt him hugging my head. I raised my head up and kissed his cheek, chuckling when he hugged my snout. "You…little…lug. I'm sorry, I'm still used to you being tall."

"I am Groot." He said, stretching his body and arms up as high as he could without pulling himself out of his pot, which was starting to get small for his size.

"Yes, you are bigger than when you were a small twig." I agreed. "A few more weeks, and you'll be taller than me again." I yawned and laid my head down again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Groot settle down to sleep, and I felt Rocket snuggle back against my leg, and pull my tail closer to himself. I curled my tail slightly around him, and closed my eyes with a happy sigh.

No matter how many nightmares I may have, I'll still have my dear friends by my side. Because no matter how real nightmares may be, they are, as my mother called them, images in my head with no purpose other than to scare me. They're not real. Ronan is gone, Xandar is safe, and everyone is alive and well.

As I drifted into full, deep sleep, I recalled the event were one by one, Gamora, Drax, Groot, me, and Rocket all agreed to help Quill defeat Ronan. I mentioned we would more than likely die, whether saving the galaxy or not. "…Either way, we're gonna have a lot of fun, I think." And despite everything bad that happened, I certainly had fun.

I had the time of my life. And I owed it all to my new friends.

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**A/N So _Guardians of the Galaxy_ is my new favorite movie. It has some awesome characters, funny moments, and cool songs. My favorite character is Groot, who is really funny and sweet. One of my favorite scenes in the movie was when he gave the flower to the little girl on Knowhere. I also like Yondu and his fascination with figurines (I can understand that, having loved looking at the hard rubber animals at Target, and like the Disney Infinity figurines) and his whistle arrow, one of the coolest weapons ever :D**

**So, as per usual, I made an OC for this movie. She is a dragon alien named Crystal, or Crys for short. Her planet has three different kinds of dragons: orange fire dragons, gray ice dragons, and green poison dragons. They can all turn into humanoid versions of themselves, but only for twelve hours at a time. I didn't say this in this oneshot, but Crys has an usekh (the wide collar/necklace things that Egyptian busts wear) that enables her to be in her humanoid form for as long as she wears it. But if she removes it, she turns back to her true form (where she's a legitimate dragon) in an animalistic rage, similar to the Hulk (who wasn't involved in Crys's creation, I swear)**

**So, this oneshot is a sort of introduction to Crys. It doesn't tell much about her past (I'm saving that for my official GotG fanfic with her added into the movie; I seem to be doing a lot of those. Are those getting annoying?) Come to think of it, it doesn't tell much about her character at all. I guess it can be considered a teaser story. I have a couple of pics of Crys on my DeviantART account (which is linked to in my fanfic profile) one is her in her humanoid form, and the other is her in her true form, though I just used a dragon maker Flash game.**

**The title, and the last lines, are references to the song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from the 1987 movie, _Dirty Dancing_. Seeing as Peter "left" Earth in 1988, he probably saw the movie, and heard the song. But I chose the song because A) I like it, and B) it's a song from his era. It's kind of like the song choices for the movie. It's not Crys's theme song (I have "Born this Way" by Lady GaGa, even though it was released twenty years after Peter's childhood) It's more of a pairing song. Her line saying "Either way, we're gonna have a lot of fun." is from the parody movie by Mel Brooks, _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_. It's a pretty funny movie, though I myself prefer _Blazing Saddles_.**

**I've actually been kinda lazy about writing since I'm taking a break, so I'll probably be slow about writing not only my future GotG fanfic, but others I have on my plate as well (a sequel for my Felidae fanfic, a Shark Tale fanfic, and when I see the movie, a Black Cauldron fanfic) I also just recently finished Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (awesome game, BTW; I just loved the credits because they showed some of my Pokemon, like when I first battled with my Treecko, which Pokemon I used in the final battle in gym battles, etc. Brings back so many memories :3) and just prefer to browse around on the internet, watch gaming videos (mostly Markiplier) and nose around on DeviantART. Plus, I'm probably gonna play Sims 3 and try some multiplayer WolfQuest tomorrow. But I promise I'll start writing more again...soon XD Christmas is also coming up, so that's been on my mind as well.**


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